Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Puppy Bowl: Cuteness Overload!

We're gonna admit this right up front: Neither Parental Unit nor I have ever watched the Puppy Bowl-not one second in eight years of mega amounts of cuteness and tens of millions of viewers. But this year will be different!

We saw this (five page), wildly funnyarticle in the Washington Post that alerted us to the possibility-make that probability - that two hours of adorableness should not be missed. We've learned that "Cute cannot be dismissed" when you've got 63 puppies playing on a mock, 10-by-19-foot football field. Millions of humans are eternally grateful that in 2005, "Animal Planet executives green-lighted a crazy idea: to film puppies playing football as counter programming to the Super Bowl." But this annual event, now in its ninth year, turned out to be far from crazy, with 8.7 million unique total viewers last year alone.

But the real winners of this game are the pups, because each is from shelters and ready for adoption. "Some shelters have built relationships with the show and give their dogs football-inspired names", like a terrier mix from the LA ASPCA to appear in this year's game named Blitz, who is hoped will "follow in the footsteps of Fumble, last year's Puppy Bowl MVP." Backstage note: All but four of the puppies appearing in this year's Bowl have already been adopted.

And just in case you thought that the animals might be mistreated in any way, "the entire production is supervised by...a representative from the Humane Society's film and television division, who ensures that the dogs, cats and hedgehogs [yes, hedgehogs!] are faring well."

If you want even more information about Puppy Bowl IX, check out this article published just hours ago by the Associated Press, "Animal Shelters are real winners of 'Puppy Bowl'. The Puppy Bowl airs On Sunday, February 3, on Animal Planet from 3:00-5:00 pm EST and then repeats throughout the next 10 hours.

Will you be first-time watchers like we are, or are you veteran Puppy Bowl aficionados? Let us know!

Oh man! Cuteness overload is putting it softly! I've only seen one puppy bowl in my days, and I was loving it the entire time. I love that they make such a fun event that anybody (or really everybody!) can love and get into. Furthermore, it's all for a good cause. The puppy bowl raises awareness of animal shelter needs, and has a large impact on animal adoptions. This was a fun article to read, thanks for sharing!